


Butterfly Effect

by HumptyDumpty



Category: Crimson Peak (2015)
Genre: F/M, a reflection on tumbling down, very... introspective? I guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 18:11:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5215640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HumptyDumpty/pseuds/HumptyDumpty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the idea that the tiny atmospheric changes caused by the flap of a butterfly's wings can ultimately have major effects on the course of the weather.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Butterfly Effect

**Author's Note:**

> Lucille Sharpe: [Looking at Edith] Beautiful things are fragile... At home we have only black moths. Formidable creatures, to be sure, but they lack beauty. They thrive on the dark and cold.  
> Edith Cushing: What do they feed on?  
> Lucille Sharpe: Butterflies, I'm afraid.

Lucille had never envied anyone. Everything she needed was cooped up in that old, decrepit mansion. Parts of her were the cracked walls and the darkened halls; secret noises reverberated on her heartstrings. Ever since their mother had died, after she and Thomas had been reunited, life had been just one step short of ideal. She merely regretted she hadn't been able to repay their father for the kind debts he'd left them, and said debts forced Thomas to marriage prostitution to make a living. Oh! Poor Thomas. Her Thomas, giving his precious affections to those worthless piggy banks. And oh, poorer Lucille, herself! Sharing even only a counterfeit when she'd killed their mother to be free. But neverthless, she was the winner of it all: Thomas was hers at the end of the day.

Until he'd slept with Edith.

Her brother belonged in her arms and Lucille had known it since they were little, when they first realized they had nobody else. There is no love equal to that which is born from the depths of despair. Those foolish girls couldn't ever come close to it. Of course, this time was no exception. Thomas had caught her off-guard by choosing Edith, but she couldn't have been worried, oh no, why worry about the Buffalo girl? He might have been bored by the usual game, but he would tire of the novelty sooner than she'd die. Now, still, she wasn't awfully worried, for she could never lose; though it troubled her to think that her little brother would be so ingrateful as to act behind her back. She had set clear rules, back when the plan had started: and he couldn't do as much as spend the night with them.

However, Thomas was after all a naive, perfect soul. Edith was surely to blame. She was a young butterfly, flapping her wings under the illusion that there's a bright wide world to conquer out there, so stubborn and sentimental to the point that it was especially disgusting to see her flutter around Thomas.

Lucille knew that in the winter you have to wait. She wasn't a very patient person per se, but she had been shaped by the storms and discovered the solace of hiding in the shadows, and yes, she wasn't worried-- at all. Edith's life was such a cup of tea to slowly take. And if the plan didn't work out this time, Lucille would stop it. She was getting sick of her own idea. Eternal love, he had promised. As the house was swallowed down the earth, so would they, together.

Stabbing Thomas was an act of pure powerlessness, with an afterfeeling of back then when she was too young to know love. His death hit her harder than their parents ever had, and had nothing of the cold indifference that moved her; no grandness or revenge, as had had mother's, no scornful pity as the girls'. Cradling his body was hardly different from carrying hers after a beating, his perfection alike ruined.

It wasn't her fault. Thomas was abandoning her. Thomas had betrayed her. Thomas had forsaken them both, and for whom? Fragments of memories reflected in her eyes as they flashed on her brother's beautifully carved face: his focused but enthusiastic expression as he created new toys, his smile which broke under the force of their mother's violent punishments, the first time she had kissed those lips, and his voice promising he'd never ever leave.

Edith Cushing was a deceitful thief in the guise of a spoiled daddy's girl. The night in town, the nerve of taking the key should have proven that! How dared she. How dared she. But now. Now, Lucille wouldn't be satisfied until the butterfly was thrashing her limbs on the ground.

And then, as the house was swallowed down the earth, so would Lucille, alone.


End file.
